


Rebirth

by Bladespeaker



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Tea Leaves, Trahearne lives AU, Trahearne's Poem, Trammander, hello have some feels, the first two parts are in free verse, tw: death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 13:28:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21302840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bladespeaker/pseuds/Bladespeaker
Summary: The whirling sands of Elona are not known for bringing life, yet when memories resurface in the mind of the dead, the ghosts tell tale of a man who would fight against a fallen god in order to come back.
Relationships: Trahearne/Player Character (Guild Wars)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Traveling Circus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18921094) by [Bladespeaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bladespeaker/pseuds/Bladespeaker). 

The ghosts spoke to me while I was with them.

They spoke with me and told me I was no mere animal, I was a  
**man**, 

no mere man, but a 

**Marshal,   
**

no mere Marshal but a 

**Firstborn**, 

one of many, but to one alone 

**beloved,   
**

to one beloved and one 

**torn from her,   
**

torn from her.

They did not let me keep my face. It was a price, they said, a price to be paid.

**And with the dead I somehow still felt more at home.   
**

Until I heard of her and felt

** something was missing.**

An echo. Something like hope. 

**Something like a dream.**

Yearned for something.

**Something like a light.**

You should not keep your name, they said.

**The Marshal is dead, has been dead. She will not know you.   
**

The ghosts do not know everything. 

**The ghosts and their master could not keep me forever.   
**

I remember now. I have seen through the Mists, been born again through fire, and until I am at her side once more, 

**I will not take my rest. _  
_**

For there is a call more beautiful than Darkness, 

_ **and I will chase it back to her.**_


	2. Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Llumin hears echoes of the dead in the sword that has fallen to her.

**No-one can truly turn back Time.   
**

Her heart tells her this; Reason shakes its head.

Yet there was once a moment, a brief moment, where her heart called out in the night,

called out, and there was an answer.

** An echo.**

**//  
**

He called her his light in Orr.

**They were star-crossed, he said.**

Years have passed and she still can remember

The taste of his lips on hers,

Laughing into hers with the same thrill that sang their hearts,

_Mine, mine, until ages pass, and forever._

** A heart lost is not easily recovered. **

//

If she looks now, she can see, she can visit

Those places where she did not wholly fail; 

where Time has frozen still, caught

Like butterflies in a web; 

In them, he is shimmering, hopeful,

**undying.   
**

She visits those rote memories, speaks the lines, listens to his voice,

And pretends that, as in days before,

**he can hear her. **

//

The world reels

From horrors she has faced and cannot see.

She is a symbol now. The Commander

Holds a scream she cannot release,

A cry she can not let out,

That swells in her chest like a tempest,

and in the tombs of old, where kings and queens

Still now do slumber, or make facade of it, she clutches

his blade like a talisman against the night, speaks 

as if he can hear her still, weeps –

and in the tombs of the ghosts, her howl is just 

one of many.

The dead do not berate her.

//

In the silence that follows, the sword

Whispers,

And in a shadow that passes, she feels that same echo, that promise

Given like a mantra in times of sorrow.

“**Wait for me. I will return to you.” **

She raises a tear-stained face.

In her hands the blade quickens, and 

Despite reason,

Despite doubt,

**Hope begins to flutter again. **


	3. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Marshal is reunited with Llumin. Tensions and questions flare.

A breath of air past lungs that forgot how to breathe. Hope in a heart that forgot how to beat.

She is beautiful now, beautiful still as the first time he met her, and more than when he left her.

_ Left, _he thinks. 

As if he had a choice. 

She turns to look at him, and he looks away. His fingers absently run over his chest, remembering the cold bite of Caladbolg as it freed him and released his final breath in the sacrifice he hoped would save her.

She does not recognize him. The hood drawn over his face leaves him in deep shadow, obscuring even the glow of his veins and the eye that the ghosts left him. 

She asks others about him, for he cannot bring himself to speak. If he speaks, she will know his voice, and she will ask questions he still can’t answer. They tell her the name he has taken for now, and listens to them marvel how they found him in the desert, nearly dead again after his journey through the Mists.

_ Perhaps she doesn’t remember you_, he can hear the ghosts laugh. He shakes his head and shoos them away.

“There’s something familiar about him.” He flinches at the suspicion in her voice. 

“Aiden Dawnheart.” The asura by her scoffs. “Clearly a false name; he hesitated when he gave it.”

“I know.” She casts another look to where he stands, mute beneath the sconce embedded in the tomb’s wall. He can feel her mind reaching out, a gentle question, letting him feel as much as hear that she is not a threat as she sends her consciousness into his own. Fear runs its icy hands down his spine.

“Stop!” 

One word. Surely she couldn’t know his voice from that? The silence in the room is immediate and palpable. He swallows in the darkness of his hood and curses himself. He hears her breathe in once, a shaking breath that holds everything he fears and hopes for all in one.

“Everybody, out,” she whispers. 

She draws Caladbolg and walks towards him, blue eyes burning in the flickering light of the flames around them. Her presence is immense, overwhelming, a dozen questions and hopes and aches all in one. When she stops, it is mere inches away from him, and her gaze stares through the hood’s shroud and seems to pierce into his very soul.

“Who are you?” she whispers. “Is this some … joke?” She slowly walks around him, staring at him as if she could break him with her eyes alone. She _could _break him with her eyes alone. “Speak again,” she says. “Speak again and let me hear your voice, or I assure you, your secrets will not be hidden forever.”

He cannot answer. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth like glue, thick and useless. He reaches towards the sword, palms-up, and hesitates. She looks at his hands, and her brow furrows. 

“You … want Caladbolg. Why?” She turns from him again, as if speaking to herself. Her shoulders move beneath her armor as she rotates the sword, holding the point skyward as she runs her hand down the flat of the blade. “It knows you,” she says quietly, “as it knew only one other.” 

He can see her grip falter; the Thorn of the Pale Tree wavers in the dim light, and he instinctively reaches out to steady her arm. Quick as a thought, her hand latches on to his arm, eyes blazing with desperation as her consciousness leaps into his own.

She is a storm, confusion and hope in a torrent that tears down his fears, strips away his defenses, leaves her standing in the chaos of his psyche staring at the ghost, the man reborn in front of her. He flinches at her gaze, openly incredulous, hurting; her lip trembles as a muffled sob escapes her lips and she steps towards him. With one word, he is dead again.

“Why?”

The projection in his mind opens his mouth, rubs the back of his neck, hesitates. She speaks again.

“You were dead. You are dead! I tried to save you, to resurrect you! I sensed your presence, yet you did not return!” 

Her grip is like iron on his wrists even as his mental plane whirls with her force. Tears run down her face as she stares at him, shaking her head. 

“I loved you, Trahearne. Why did you not come when I turned back time itself? I tried to save you,” she sobs again. Her smile is confused, desperate; he fears she has lost her mind. “Take off your hood, Trahearne. Face me. Or do you not care?” 

He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. He does not remove the hood, and his voice is too quiet. “It was not my time.”

“Not your time?” She steps back, incredulous. “Not your time! I spent two years trying to bring you back! It nearly killed me! It nearly destroyed parts of the world; parts of the Mists!”

“I know,” he whispers, and feels every ounce of her betrayal and pain bearing down on him like fire in his bones. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Yet you’re here now. Why? How?”

He closes his eyes and concentrates; the sword the ghosts gave him materializes in the spectral plane. Her eyes widen as its heavy weight lands in his arms.

“Dhuum, the former god of death, had me first. When Balthazar was destroying and twisting parts of the Mists, I was nearly destroyed with it. I was pulled into Dhuum’s realm; I forgot everything about who I was, who I had been. It was your ghost – sensing your death – that stirred the first memory within me. Dhuum had others he had managed to enslave from Grenth’s hold before he was sealed again, and gloated that I was too important to devour. He claimed that he would keep me, that his allies in the outer realms had helped to seal me with the same magic that was weakening on him.” 

The sword seems to draw light into it; a heavy darkness pulls even Llumin’s consciousness towards it. The resurrected necromancer grimaces and stows the blade.

“While Grenth took his own allies from the mortal realm to seal Dhuum again, he also realized that he needed others to do their part in the Underworld to perform the ritual.” He looks away, shame burning his face. “I promised my aid… for a bargain. A return.”

He reaches up slowly and draws down his hood. Horror falls over her as she steps back; he can feel the skin on his face pull as he gives a mirthless smile.

“The ghosts took my eye,” he said quietly. “Mordremoth is dead, but its corruption could not be fully purged from my body. I didn’t want you to see me like this,” he whispers. “I knew you would think it your fault.”

“I … couldn’t save you. It _was _my fault,” she whispers. Her steps are slow, hesitant as she moves back toward him, raising a shaking hand to his half-ruined face. 

He reaches down and gently holds her wrist. Tears trickle from his one good eye. “It wasn’t.”

She looks at his hand, at his face. Her throat bobs. “Let me see,” she whispers. He hesitates. “Let me see it, Trahearne,” she says again, and her voice is firm. 

He bows his head and trembles as her fingers run down the ruined half of his face; the dark green leaves made tough and calloused by the remnants of the Dragon’s corruption that could not be healed. Her thumb gently strokes his cheekbone, and he leans into her touch. Something in him cracks, but he refuses to let it break.

“It’s all right,” she says. “I’m here now. We are alone here.”

Her permission is all it takes. In the storm of his mind’s eye, the resurrected Marshal of the Pact falls to his knees and sobs; his Commander cradles his head in her hands and weeps with him, and the world around them grows quiet. 

The Commander and the necromancer walk calmly from the room. His hood is still up, but Llumin declares firmly that he is to be trusted, and that he should be given time to recover. 

“Being in the desert tends to be a traumatic experience,” she says. “I will personally help him to heal and recover so he can better help us as we move forward with our operations in the future.” 

Myrie, a short, brown-haired human thief, squints. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

The thief watches her for a moment; Llumin already knows that she will have to tell her and the rest of her guild the truth, but for now, she nods and dismisses them.

After all, there is much to do.


	4. Lilies and Willow Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragons, death, gods, betrayal... nothing has stopped the Commander or the Marshal in the past. Yet the legal system of Lion's Arch and the uncertainties of the resurrected heart may be the biggest obstacles they face. Myrie reprises her role as emotional help and wishes she got paid more.

“Legally Dead.” 

Those two words burned into his mind as he skimmed over the reports of his death for the fifth time. He couldn’t bear to read most of it; he felt and remembered enough of the event as it was, and the reminder he bore on the right side of his face was like a rasping claw, scraping against the flesh that gave him just enough anonymity to walk around relatively-unnoticed. The former Marshal groaned and leaned back in his chair, running a slow hand down his face with a grimace. Adjusting to monocular vision had taken him less time than he had expected, and though he missed it, any sight, any life was a gift after losing it for as long as he. Those who stared or questioned him could often be persuaded in one way or another that they were surely mistaken; that it was entirely possible that they were thinking of someone else, and hadn’t they heard of doppelgängers before? It wasn’t an uncommon mistake. 

The Lionsguard book-keeper paused by his desk and squinted at him. “You know,” she said, giving a short laugh of frustration, “you really do remind me of someone. I just can’t think of it!” She shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll come to me later.”

Trahearne gave a thin smile. “I get that a lot.”

She gestured towards his paper. “You still reading that? It’s been a while, unless you’re studying for some reports on sylvari corruption of Mordrem and all that.” She snapped her fingers. “You know, I just remembered; someone mentioned that the chief Commander’s in town today with a bunch of her guildmates. Those guys’ve seen a lot of that stuff firsthand. Maybe you could convince some of them to tell you their stories!”

He shook his head. “She’s been through enough,” he said quietly. He slowly rolled the report and slipped it back into its case. “Actually, if you could put this back, I would be interested in viewing the matrimonial laws of the city.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “An odd set of requests, but not the strangest I’ve seen. All right, hold on; I’ll get those for you.”

Myrie jumped as the resurrected Marshal marched through the library’s doors and strode past her double-time. 

“Hey, wait up, where’s the fire? Everything all right?”

He spun on his heel and held up a finger, jaw shifting. The human stared up at him and gave a concerned frown. 

“Tra…. ahem. Aiden. If you don’t take a breath, you’re going to pass out. Okay? In, out – ”

He took a slow breath in through his nose, shoulders straightening. “Llumin and I are no longer married.”

The thief blinked. “What?”

“Come with me; I’ll explain.”

“Okay, did something go wrong…?”

“Thankfully, no.” He continued walking briskly down the library’s staircase, voice terse as he continued. “According to Lion’s Arch matrimonial laws, in the case of death of one or both spouses, the marriage is considered dissolved.”

Myrie gave him a look. “Yeah, that… I’d think that pretty reasonable.”

He returned the glance with one of his own. “Miss Ward, both Llumin and I have, over the course of our lives, died. Which means, legally…”

The human stopped in her tracks and sucked in a breath. “Oh. That… makes things a little awkward.”

They had wandered into a tavern. Trahearne continued, slowly losing his composure. “I don’t want to think about losing her again, in any sense of the word, but… has she moved on, Myrie? Do you think there were any others who could have made her happier? Is she…?”

“Hold on, slow down,” Myrie said quickly. His voice was still recognizable enough to anyone who had been in the Pact around long enough to hear it. “You have to keep your voice down,” she said, carefully guiding him into a rickety wooden chair and motioning to the barkeep for a couple of drinks. “Let’s get you something to drink before we keep this up.”

The green-skinned sylvari only nodded and put his face in his hands. 

“That’s not to say there haven’t been suitors of one sort or another,” the thief said delicately, watching her companion over the rim of her mug, “but overall, no. I mean, you couldn’t blame Laranthir for his interest, or any of the others’, really, but Llumin’s never really found anyone that she ‘clicked’ with as well as you.” 

He stared at her as if she had told him the most wonderful secret in the world. 

“Does it make me a terrible person,” he said, trying and failing to stifle the smile that wound around his face, “if that news makes me one of the happiest men in the world?”

“A little.” Myrie ignored the frown he gave at her remark and shrugged. “But I can’t wholly blame you, either. Heck, I remember your wedding,” she said, smiling. “I don’t think anyone who knew you thought that you were anything other than meant for each other. Couple of planty nerds,” she chuckled. “You two were adorable.”

At the mention of his wedding, Trahearne’s smile faltered. “Were. Yes.” He swirled what was left of his drink in the bottom of his cup. Myrie watched the orange glow in his veins brighten as he shrugged and tossed the rest of it down his throat. 

“Didn’t you used to glow purple?”

“Yes, and I also used to have a whole face, be a little shorter, and was less-muscular, if the comments I’ve received in the past few months are anything to go by.”

“I wondered if it was just my eyes playing tricks on me.” The thief smacked a fist into her hand triumphantly. “Let a girl know what that whole post-death, Dhuum-sealing workout is, eh? I wouldn’t mind being a bit taller and broader.”

He gave a dry smile. “I think part of it was the residual corruption, in all honesty. It’d make your thievery a bit more difficult.”

She shrugged. “I’d manage. Hey, where are you going?”

“Nowhere I’ll be recognized. Don’t worry, Warmaster, I’m not going to do anything too idiotic.”

She stood. “You know I hate it when people use my title. I’ll go with you.”

“Why, am I still thought to be too fragile to be on my own?”

“No, because you’re obviously still in emotional distress, and right now, I can tell you that the last thing you need is more loneliness.”

He paused and glanced down at her, the fight slowly draining from him. After a long moment, he sighed. “Very well,” he said. “But please, as much as it pains you, don’t say anything.”

Myrie only smiled gently at him and mimed locking her lips. 

“An impossible feat,” Trahearne laughed quietly. “I suppose having someone to bounce ideas off of wouldn’t be so bad.”

Elsewhere in the city, the Commander of the Pact walked over to a filigreed window and paused, staring outside at the bustle of people and races that walked through the city. The lamp-lights, hung in glass orbs from colorful ropes below brilliant tents and silks or dangling from on high lamp-posts, were being lit. She still couldn’t tell if they were done by magic or something else, yet for the first time in a long while, watching their lights flare to life in the darkening sky failed to bring the same level of joy they usually did. 

“He’s still out there,” she murmured. Her fingers twisted one of her rings nervously around slender fingers. “Why hasn’t he come back yet?”

In the corner behind her, further in the room, the red-haired elementalist sat up in her plush chair and sighed, setting a novel on the enameled table in front of her. “He’s not alone, Llumin; I can assure you that the last thing that man wants right now is more undue attention, and with Myrie to distract anyone and guard him, he will remain unharmed.” She picked up her novel again, pale skin glowing in the setting sunlight, and settled back onto the velvet cushions. “This isn’t the jungles or the desert, you know.”

“I know.” Dark indigo willow-leaves brushed past Llumin’s shoulders as she bowed her head. “I just… I worry for him.”

“I would be concerned if you didn’t.” 

The sylvari spun around, blue gaze beseeching. “Are you certain we can’t go out and look for them? Maybe they got lost, or – !” She paused, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t want to lose him again.”

The crack in her voice made the elementalist pause. She set her book down and quietly walked over to the sylvari, setting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hey,” she murmured, running a soothing hand over her arm. “I really do understand, Llumin. It’s all right.”

“Thank you, Selana.” The sylvari accepted the offered handkerchief and dabbed at her watering eyes. She gave a shuddering sigh and laughed. “Oh, look at me,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m a mess.”

“You are concerned.” The human stared down at her and smiled encouragingly. “That is more than reasonable considering your circumstances. Come, sit.” She gently guided the Commander into a chair opposite hers and set her novel aside. “Now, let’s go over things again. What did he say he planned on doing today?”

“He said he planned on visiting the library after breakfast,” the mesmer said. “Myrie would accompany him to act as both a bodyguard and informant should something concerning arise.”

“Right, and after that?”

“He said he … wanted to wander the city. To see how much it’s changed.”

“And it has changed a lot since he was last here,” Selana said, nodding. “Did he say anything about his plans afterward?”

“Not that I can recall.” The sylvari set her hands on the table and picked absently at her nails. Selana sighed gently.

“Manners, Llumin; please don’t pick your nails at the table.”

The plant-woman gave an impressive pout. “You know, you really are quite good at that ‘older sister’ role.”

“It’s a bit more than a role for us,” she smiled, “but I’m glad to hear I’m doing it so well.”

Despite herself, Llumin giggled. Her pale lavender glow brightened through her leafy skin. Her smile faded as she set her small chin in a delicate hand. “Do you think he’ll be back soon?”

“Unless he’s got anywhere else to stay and somehow manages to ditch Myrie, I doubt it,” Selana said with a short laugh. “Tell you what, I’ll make us some tea. Would lavender be nice?”

“I would appreciate it,” she said. 

The elementalist gave her a kind smile. “Don’t worry, Llumin. They’ll be back.”

Myrie sat back on her stony seat and raised a tired brow as Trahearne’s shadow flitted over her face again. “You know, all things considered, you seem a bit nervous.”

“Nervous?” He threw his hands in the air and resumed pacing a small track around the fire-pit. “Of course I’m nervous! I’ve been dead for years and now am considering proposing to my wife again!”

Myrie stared at him as he completed another few circuts. “Have you ever considered the fact,” she said slowly, steepling her fingers. “that you might be overthinking this just a _little_?”

“How? How could I possibly be overthinking this? I was reading the laws, Myrie, I know all of their codes, their sections…”

“Sit down and take a breath; you’re making a scene.”

His single, golden eye narrowed dangerously down at her, and the thief felt, not for the first time, that unnerving feeling of grave-chill at her neck, a pricking at the base of her skull. It wasn’t right to be nervous of him just because of the twisted leaves on his face, she kept telling herself. The corruption had spread no further than that – perhaps a shoulder or an arm was a bit more rough-skinned, if the cloth’s pull told anything – but he was still in mind the same man who had helped lead her and the rest of the Pact to victory.

Wasn’t he?

“At least that gives you a bit of anonymity.” She shoved a thumb towards his face and hunched her shoulders. “I understand the hood, but you have to admit, being able to brush all that recognition off as a doppelgänger’s pretty nice.”

“To them, I’m just another scarred sylvari,” he said quietly. “I usually don’t like to tempt fate by even suggesting who I really am.” His jaw shifted. “She’s grown so much,” he murmured. “Llumin, I mean. She’s gone so far, done so much. When we first met, she said that she felt an awe towards me; I was Firstborn, Trahearne, the Scholar of Orr. She saw my weakness and was still willing to push me forwards. She made me better.” He swallowed and stared into the fire’s glow. “Even after my death, I can see how much she still inspires others. She’s….” He sighed and leaned back, eye narrowing as he stared up at the sky.

“She’s the Commander,” Myrie said quietly.

“She’s _celestial_.” He shook his head. “She doesn’t need me, Myrie. She led you to the Fire Islands, to the hidden groves of Melandru, to Elona and even through the Mists themselves. The Commander leads on her own now.” He stared at his palms. “She no longer needs a Marshal.”

The human slowly turned to him, green eyes wide, before she very calmly and deliberately smacked him upside the head. “You absolute _cabbage_,” she said. “Do I really have to play the same role I did all those years back?”

He stared at her mutely, eye wide as he rubbed the side of his face. Myrie sighed in frustration and crossed her arms. 

“Look, since you clearly didn’t get the memo the first time, Llumin still loves you. Maybe that trip back through the Mists and death and all jarred your observation skills, but to the rest of us, it’s pretty darned obvious. She _has _grown, Trahearne. So have you, as much as you might not see it. You’re right; she does lead on her own. She no longer needs a Marshal. But,” she said, and held up a hand to still him, “she needs _you_. If you want to marry her again, even if you have to use another name, then what’s stopping you?”

For a moment, he was quiet. “What use is a name,” he finally whispered, “if she is not the one to say it?“

Myrie groaned and ran her hands down her face. “Just go.”

He blinked owlishly. “What?”

Two hands, smallish, but very insistent, were shoving against his shoulder-blades. “Get up, go, and tell her yourself, you emotionally-constipated dead man, before i have to listen to any more of your mopeyness and before it gets any later. At this rate, she’ll practically rocket into your arms when we get back, and you could easily propose then.” She stepped around him and put her hands on her hips. “You can write your new name on the wedding registry, but trust me, if you want her to call you Trahearne, I’m sure she’ll do just that.” She gave him a small, tired smile. “She might even be willing to call you husband again, if you’re lucky. Come on, Selana’s summer house is this way, and I’ve got to find a way to stash all these goodies I nicked while you were in the library.”

Llumin woke with a gasp; tendrils of a nightmare still wound around her mind as she returned to the land of the waking, and she shook her head, desperately trying to remember it in case it was another omen. How long had she been sleeping?

A hand at her shoulder made her jump. 

“Good timing,” Selana murmured, and gestured with her steaming cup of coffee towards the window. Trahearne’s towering shadow and Myrie’s shorter shade lengthened as they neared the entryway lamps of Selana’s house.

“Did you lock the door?” Llumin hurriedly gathered her willow hair at the back of her neck. 

“I did, but you know Myrie; she likes to think she’s sneaked in.”

“She really is like another sister to you, isn’t she?”

The elementalist’s lips twisted. “If so, she’s definitely the more problematic of you two. I think I prefer your brand of it.”

“Oh, she just adds more variety to our lives.”

“And the local law enforcement’s.”

The elementalist threw a sapphire shawl over her shoulders and went down to greet them, opening the door more fully and marveling that she could have sworn that she had locked it.

“You know me; I still can’t control these hands,” Myrie declared triumphantly. “But I appreciated the challenge.”

“Llumin would have killed me if I didn’t let you back in,” Selana said broadly; her gaze nonetheless lingered longer on the reborn Marshal, who coughed and blushed a brilliant ember. “Tea?”

“I’ll take rose, if you have it.” Trahearne’s eye crinkled in a smile as Llumin descended. “I didn’t think you would still be awake.”

“I managed.” She failed to stifle the traitorous yawn that rose to her lips. “Barely.” 

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Selana said, and whisked out of the entryway towards the kitchen. “The staff is already asleep, and I see no reason to wake them.” 

“I’ll just… head to my room.” Myrie pressed to the wall behind Trahearne and scooted around him; Llumin’s eye couldn’t help but catch sight of her strained knapsack. “Escorting _this _cabbage was exhausting.”

“Really?” Llumin’s lips quirked. Myrie’s face became suddenly childish, as if she was a schoolgirl caught in the middle of a prank.

“Yes, really,” she said hurriedly, “and I’d best get back to my room and sleep for a while before Selana yells at me or something…” She muttered a few quick excuses, restated her absolute tiredness, and zipped away to her part of the summer house as quick as a thought.

Llumin shook her head and laughed. “How much do you think we’ll have to pay this time?”

Trahearne rolled his eye. “Oh, that depends on how close some of her more inquisitive fans may have got to her… I’m honestly impressed that so many of them come from the nobility.”

“Ooh, bad move on their part,” the mesmer laughed. “If they really pay any attention, they should know of her thieving talents.”

He shrugged. “Maybe they’ve taken to hiding declarations of affection on themselves in the hopes that she’ll take those?”

“I’ve heard crazier tales.” She walked into the dining room and pulled out a chair from the long table. “Like a man returning from the dead.”

He stepped behind her and removed a chair for her. “Or a commander doing the same.” 

She slid into the one he offered, murmuring her thanks. He gently pushed her back towards the table and took the one she had removed. Selana entered the room, set the kettle and two cups between them, and took her leave, declaring that she had a book calling her name, and that she would leave the door to the bedroom unlocked if Llumin wished to go to bed.

The sylvari watched her go as she ascended to the second floor and left them in peace. 

“She always boils the water perfectly,” Llumin commented as she poured Trahearne a cup. “I think it must be that elemental magic of hers.”

“Could be, or she just pays attention,” he agreed. The sweet scent of the brew floated between them, and both felt their shoulders relax at its smell. 

“She always pays attention,” the mesmer said, and raised her cup to her lips. Her eyes widened. “This is the same brew that we had back in Orr,” she said, raising the cup to her gaze and staring at it. She shook her head and laughed. “You know, I still have that book you gave me.”

“_Treatise on a Sunken Land_? Are you certain it isn’t outdated by now?”

“By now, it is,” she said with a smile. “Orr has begun to grow again.”

Disbelieving hope and joy spread over his scarred face. “Is it?”

“All thanks to you,” she said. She was quiet a moment, face falling. “When you died, I would visit those regrowing places and imagine you were with me. I wished you could have seen it.”

“We could see it now,” he said. “Together, if you would like.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Not _right _now, I would think; the docks are closed, and traveling this far over waypoint can be a bit less-reliable at this hour.”

“No, not now,” he agreed. “But perhaps later. We could study it; my prior history and knowledge of the place, combined with your field knowledge…”

“It’d be like old times.” She smiled. His own faltered.

“Except for my eye,” he said quietly. “My face…. Apparently, we aren’t married anymore.”

Llumin drew back in shock. “What?”

“Lion’s Arch law and marriage practice,” he said simply. “If a member of the union is dead, the marriage is considered dissolved. It’s understandable, considering we were both dead, but…” he shrugged. “While you are listed as ‘alive,’ my name is filed with the dead. ‘Trahearne’ is no more.” He ran his hand over his chest again; a subconscious motion mimicking the strike that had killed him. “Not in the legal state, at least.”

“Well, that’s silly,” Llumin declared. The reborn Marshal had to stifle a laugh at her determined face. “I’ll just go up to them, ask for a copy, and…” She paused, ears slowly turning a brilliant lavender. “Oh,” she said quietly. “Dead.” She set her cooling cup of tea on the table and pursed her lips. “We could… we could always get married again.”

A faint orange glow lit through the Marshal’s veins. “It would have to be under my alias,” he said.

“You could call yourself by any other name, and I would still know your true one,” she said softly. “Would you be willing to write it under your another, though, if required?”

“I could endure any name others would call me, as long as I get to hear you say it.”

“Trahearne,” she said, and her eyes crinkled as the blush over his face deepened. “There, I said it.” She reached her hand, still so slender, so delicate, against the roughened corruption of his face, and his smile faltered. 

“Are you certain you would still want me?” he asked. “Even after all of the changes this new form has brought?”

“I don’t care what others think,” she said simply. She set her cup aside to hold his face in her hands, and he reached with a sigh to hold her wrists as his eye closed, calm in her hold. “I’ve endured more than death to have you here again. If I have to reach a bit higher to kiss you,” she said, tilting her head at him, “or reach around further to hold you, I could endure it. I think I could endure a thousand things now that you’re here again.”

“I could make it easier for you to kiss me,” he murmured. “I could kneel,” he said. He slid his hands over her own and slipped from his chair to the wooden floor. “I could even offer you my heart again if you would have it.”

Llumin’s throat caught, a wide smile breaking over her face. “Marshal,” she whispered, heedless of the tears that slowly trickled down her cheeks. “This heart has only ever been yours.”

“Would you have me then again, Llumin?”

“Yes,” she laughed, and gave a cry of gleeful surprise as he swooped her into his arms and whirled around, nearly brushing the teacups from the table as he held her to him. She giggled as he set her back on the ground. “And heavens pity the poor fool who tries to come in between us again!”

“We’ll have to plan the wedding one more time,” he sighed, sitting back in his chair and running a hand over his head. 

“I still have my dress,” Llumin noted. “Should we send out the same invitations?”

He grinned. “You could spruce them up with mesmer magic; change the date.”

“People might think it’s a prank.”

“Let them. I have to admit, being ‘Aiden Dawnheart’ is a bit nicer in terms of anonymity. You haven’t got people following you around, asking for your advice, or expecting you to lead them into battle.” 

“No, that’s my job now; how did you do it then?”

“I had a lovely bride to help me.”

“Ah, that’s what I was missing: a spouse!”

“Of course,” he laughed. “Oh, the Commander of the Pact, getting married again. What will the press think?”

“They’ll think that it’s a lovely wedding, and if the groom looks familiar, than it’s little more than a coincidence,” she said primly. “I’ll invite Gryphon Radwing again; his abilities may help make the event a little more of a private affair.”

“We cannot have Sylfia manning the bar again,” he grimaced. “I don’t even know how she managed to drink that much in one evening.”

“Oh, agreed, and we’ll have to keep Khimma and Klixx from deploying their flower-petal golems. I think we terrified some of the diplomats when they came whirling down the aisle.”

“After all they’d ignored, I think it was worth it,” the Marshal muttered, grinning slyly and wincing as Llumin gave him a playful whap. “Point taken!”

“Should Myrie still make the rings? I actually still have the one you gave me.”

“You do?”

“Yes; unlike Myrie, though, I … couldn’t wear it after your death. I kept it in a box. It was too painful a reminder.”

“Healing Caladbolg helped you, though. I remember that echo from the Dream.”

“It did,” she said quietly. “But enough talk of death; you are alive, and that is what matters.” She paused. “It did use to be yours, though; would you rather have Caladbolg than I?”

“No, love. The sword chose a new wielder; one who has used it well. You are the new Knight, and I would not take that from you.”

She nodded and yawned. “Oh, dear, I fear I’ve forgotten the time.”

“Are you tired?”

“I’ve gone through about five different emotional stages in the past hour, Trahearne; so just a bit, yes.”

His smile widened. “Somehow I’m more awake then ever. I’d dare say I – ”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Feel alive!”

She whirled around, stepped on the chair, and turned back to kiss him. “Marshal Trahearne, whatever will I do with you?” she laughed. 

“Marry me, I think,” he said, blinking in surprise. “Or kiss me again, if you would like.”

She hummed and batted her eyes at him. “I think I’ll marry you again. I’m going to bed, though. You may see me to the door and then not until the wedding,” she said, and placed a finger to his nose. “Bad luck and all.”

“We certainly can’t have that.” He kissed the palm of her hand. “But when should it be?”

“A week, I think? Maybe two? It shouldn’t take long to reorganize things. I’m surprisingly good under pressure, you know, being the Commander and all, and I don’t think it will be too big.”

“A whole week without you?”

She hummed. “Maybe you can see me up until the day of the wedding. Could you survive that?”

Trahearne smiled. He placed his hands around her waist and set her on the ground. “I think I could.”

“Good.” Her eyes crinkled, sky-blue and beautiful as anything he had ever seen. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Marshal.”


End file.
